This Dog Could Hunt>
Wireless Internet group feels the heat of
competition
By Anthony Cataldo
EE Times
(12/10/98, 5:36 p.m. EDT)
KYOTO, Japan — An open wireless communications consortium working
on an international platform to bring the Internet to mobile phones is under
intense pressure to come out with a second version of its protocol and
language extensions as wideband CDMA draws near and as alternative
schemes come to the fore.
Since it was founded in 1997 by Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Unwired
Planet Inc., the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) consortium has
managed to corral support from some 70 wireless-service providers,
cellular-phone manufacturers and software developers. The group is touting
an open standards model for development of XML extensions called the
Wireless Markup Language (WML).
Similar to HTML, WML is a tag-based display language providing
navigational support, data input, hyperlinks, text and image presentation, and
forms. Proponents say the protocol promises interoperability among all open
air interfaces and existing narrowband phones.
But according to at least one key partner, the consortium isn't moving fast
enough to roll the next version of the standard. And it still has a way to go in
wooing software developers and wireless operators, according to
participants at a WAP meeting here.
NTT DoCoMo-the world's largest wireless communications provider-joined
WAP in recent months and is urging the group to finish its next version of the
architecture, which defines programming languages, interfaces, transport
layer, security features and a protocol stack. "This should be done as soon
as possible," said Shuichi Shindo, senior vice president and executive
manager of DoCoMo's mobile computing business department. "I had hoped
it would have been released at this meeting."
The first WAP version can only support 100 Japanese characters, which is
insufficient for DoCoMo's plan to deploy wideband-CDMA trials early next
year in Tokyo. Shindo said, however, that if the next version is finished by
the summer or next autumn, DoCoMo will incorporate WAP beginning with
its Personal Digital Cellular phones.
WAP officials said they hope to come out with the revision in the first half. In
the meantime, they will conduct field trials with European carriers. The goal is
to provide an end-to-end solution and interoperable products by July.
MS, Qualcomm venture
In October, Microsoft and Qualcomm, also a WAP member, formed a joint
venture, called WirelessKnowledge, that aims to build its own end-to-end
wireless network based on Internet standards. Aiming to deploy the network
by the first half, the company seeks to integrate Windows CE into a future
Qualcomm ASIC and to build on existing wireless and Internet standards.
Cellular-network operators, meanwhile, are itching to expand their services
to integrate data and video with cell phones to expand their customer base in
anticipation of wideband CDMA's deployment. DoCoMo, for example,
considers such services a key part of its Phase II growth strategy .
Shindo said DoCoMo is leaving its options open. It expects to meet soon
with the Microsoft camp about WirelessKnowledge, which has already
nabbed AirTouch Communications, AT&T Wireless Services, Bell Atlantic
Mobile, Bell Mobility (Canada), BellSouth, GTE Wireless, Leap Wireless
International, Sprint PCS and US West Wireless.
DoCoMo also plans early next year to deploy a proprietary scheme, called
iMode, that combines HTML and the company's proprietary protocols. If
DoCoMo is not satisfied by WAP's progress, "then we may propose iMode
protocols on WAP," Shindo said. That could force the WAP forum to
consider changing course after having already completed much of the early
work on the architecture, applications and protocol stack.
The second WAP specification promises such features as the ability to tailor
an application for one particular device and a push model that will let the
network deliver data to the handset automatically. Programmers will use a
special scripting language that will run on a byte-code virtual machine similar
to Java.
The standard is based on a protocol stack optimized for HTTP 1.1 and
includes what members say is an efficient binary header encoding scheme. It
is being designed to run on any wireless network, supports both transaction
and datagram modes, and is based on ports similar to TCP. Wireless
transactions can be implemented on handsets using a 1-Mips processor and
as little as 15 kbytes of memory, making it applicable to both second- and
third-generation cell phones.
WAP proponents say adding more powerful CPUs or memory would add
cost, reduce battery life and alter the form factor of the phone. "It's similar to
the networking computing model," said Chuck Parrish, chairman of the WAP
forum and executive vice president of Unwired Planet, which designed the
micro-browser for WAP. "Moore's Law works, but the Internet is gobbling
more bandwidth and processing power. Multimedia phones are growing, but
they are starting out an order of magnitude less capable and in one year will
probably still be."
At the meeting, WAP members were questioned about the advantage of
using a compact language when third-generation phones will have more
advanced hardware and faster transmission speeds. WAP proponents said
it's important to provide users with an option that can bridge the cellular
generations. "Even with the bandwidth available on 3G phones, we believe
you still need to accommodate both narrowband and wideband services for
users," said Christophe Francois, product-development director at
SFR/Cegetel.
Another question was whether WAP's heavy reliance on proxy servers will
excessively load the network. Hans Hansen, business-development manager
for Nokia Mobile Phones' R&D division, said the gateway has been
integrated with existing telecom infrastructure and is designed to balance
high-capacity loads. The protocol can run on standard workstation clusters
and can be segmented to run on different machines.
Besides the Microsoft/Qualcomm alliance, WAP will have to contend with a
proprietary proposal from 3Com Corp.'s Palm Computing subsidiary, which
is readying the Palm VII PDA with an 8-kbyte/second wireless link. The
company has established a wireless service using BellSouth's existing
wireless network to pick up Palm signals at basestations and then relay the
traffic to 3Com's servers in San Jose, Calif. Signals would then be sent to the
Net using standard protocols. |
